Friday night lights keep society intact
by Pete Cunningham
*As printed September 5, 2007 in The Homer Index

With school now in session, and the football season in full swing, the area’s Friday night activity list has shrunk - as it does every fall - to the delight of sideline patrons. It’s almost unfathomable to imagine our lives without Friday night football, and many other sporting events of the like, yet for most people worldwide, this is often the case.

Although the popularity of football is very much a U.S. phenomenon, adamant support of athletics is by no means a regional trend. In the Dominican, baseball is king, while our European brethren eat, breathe and sleep soccer. Down under, rugby takes precedent over all things holy, while, to the north, hockey rules with an iron fist. Where the U.S. stands tall above the rest is not in our following of sports, but rather in our support of them at the high school level.

In countries other than our own it is commonplace to have little to no money for high school sports, and so most schools simply do not form teams. Most sports only operate at the privately-funded club level. It’s not that the funds don’t exist, it’s just that other countries have yet to create an infrastructure that allows the marquis sports to support the non-profit ones, so neither find their way to scholastic settings. It is fair to say that they are worse off as a result.

It is no exaggeration when I state that 90 percent of my memories from my formative years are somehow related to sporting events in which I was either a participant or a fan. Without this outlet at that time in my life, I cannot imagine having been able to endure school or any other challenges life has presented me with.

A couple weeks back, I discussed this topic with a friend who shared my sentiments. We estimated that a good 10-15 of our friends would have never so much as graduated high school if not for the allure of bashing helmets nine Fridays a year. When further extending the list to other sports, the number grew exponentially.

The benefits we reap from having strong community support for our high school sports can be seen from simply visiting a land where it doesn’t exist. The aforementioned friend had recently spent time in Scotland where he observed a phenomenon that he felt was a direct result of not having sports as an outlet.

Throughout Scotland there is a major rift between adults and youth due to an ever expanding social group identified by the local populace as NEDs (non-educated delinquents.) What NEDs lack in discipline and manners, they make up for in odor and overall misery. After discussing the much-maligned social group and their tendency to ruin everything in their path, it wasn’t long before we determined that without high school sports, the likelihood of our being NEDs ran at about 100 percent.

Having grown up where we did, however, such behavior would have made us ineligible for sports, and therefore was out of the question. It’s not that we were above drinking bottles of Robotussin for a quick buzz or lighting manure on a local bus (a typical Tuesday afternoon for a friendly neighborhood NED), it’s just that such behavior could land someone on the ineligible list, and was therefore avoided at all costs. Rather than blindly projecting which random ditch or correctional facility we would have ended up in without the presence of such incentives, we simply concluded that our being functional members of society would pretty much be out of the question had it not been for sports.

I still benefit from the effects high school sports, and can say with conviction that schools benefit from who I have become as a result. Me and many others like me buy 50/50 tickets, team apparel and tickets every year, without ever realizing that we are filling the gas tanks of our busses and putting new bindings on our schools’ books in the process. More importantly, our support provides the tools to form the next generation of leaders, and keeps the NED population at bay.